Checkmarks

With Spring comes spring cleaning, which goes for Ipods as well. Taking off the unlistened songs from a playlist to make way for the new is especially difficult for me, like a small piece of my appendix is being trimmed away, but all the same I try to reason with myself by keeping a large number of superfluous songs on there (for example, I will say to myself, if someone should walk up to me at a random time and ask me if I have a German techno pop song by Mouse on Mars, I will be able to say, WHY YES! OF COURSE I DO! hence the reason I cannot take away that specific song). But going through everything, I've come up with some songs that I haven't heard in a while that I think should be recognized for being so titanic in their own ways.

THE FORGOTTEN: a mix of the hidden songs you never thought you would find again

Portrait by Duke Special: This Irish singer/songwriter slides in a gorgeous alt/ragtime piano tune with ease. The song slips from the instruments in a synchronized unsynchronicity, coming together and falling apart on cues from Duke's full, accented vocals.

Think I'm In Love by Beck: The spacey song is a star track off of the famous anti-folk-rapper's "The Information", one of my favorite Beck albums of all time.

Bloody Mother F*cking A*ssh*le by Martha Wainwright: Wainwright's swooping hoarse voice bites into the obsenities and poetry alike in this biographical peer into her head as a young musician trying to break into her own.

Seaside by The Kooks: The acoustic guitar and clean, loaded lyrics make for a simply stunning song, though quite simple in itself.

Good Feeling by Violet Femmes: The original folk punk trio in their softest, most emotional track to date.

Back to music news, The Academy Is' new album, Santi is blowing up. I mean it. Ever since they exchanged guitarists (not to insinuate that trading in Tom Conrad for a spikier, Aussie-er model has boosted band interest, I myself am a huge fan of Conrad's photography which you can see at www.forevernever.net) and chopped off half of Sisky Biz (bass wiz)'s hair, publicity and bookings have been through the roof. Now this is partly satisfying and partly frustrating for me as I've been saying for years that TAI would be big one day, but NO. NOBODY listens. Note: "We've Got a Big Mess On Our Hands", my personal favorite off of Santi- is the song about what William Beckett claims was the identity crisis forcing Tom to leave the band? The music video definitely could point to that. See for yourself: Hm. At any rate, they're definitely MY weapon of choice when it comes to naming favorite emo poster boys, especially with the return of TAI TV, the band's well spliced together travels across the country. Episodes include several backstage tours, insane dancing in front of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and Adam T. Siska getting the word SANTI tatooed on his backside. Hilarity ensues. Check them all out at www.theacademyis.com


More later,

Kit

P.S. Everybody's into Fergie, yeah? Well it turns out that (in a speculation made by hardcore Ferg-fans, critics, and mere...well...speculators) it seems that perhaps what we all thought was a totally original track isn't quite that. Check out the Californian 80's group, J.J. Fad's music video for "Supersonic" the song that they wrote in '88 that Fergie actually sampled for "Fergalicious". The legality completely checks out (see The Duchess' liner notes for sampling rights) but isn't it nice to be aware that almost three decades ago people were jamming to almost the same song? Yeah, you're welcome.